CHAPTER XXXVI. THE STONE OF STUMBLING.

But whilst I had been going about my work the enemies had not been idle. They had deposed me from the ministry. They could not depose me from the hearts of a willing and loyal people. They had invoked the secular arm, and that had been turned back.

Now, by hasty process, they had also appointed one, McKie, to succeed me—a young man that had been a helper to one of them, harmless enough, indeed, in himself, a good and quiet lad. Him, for the sake of the stipend, they had persuaded to be their cat’s-paw.

But the folk of Balmaghie were clear against giving him any foothold, so that he made little more of it than he had done at first.

But it chanced that on the day on which I had gone to Earlstoun to speak with Alexander Gordon, the more active of the Presbytery had gathered together many of the wild and riotous{326} out of their parishes, and had sent them to take possession of the manse and glebe of Balmaghie.

Hob, my brother, was over by at the house of Drumglass, helping them with the last of their meadow hay, being a lad ever kind and helpful to all, saying little but doing much.

So that the house, being left defenceless in fancied security, the young lad McKie and his party had been in and about the manse for a full hour before any brought word of their approach.

McKie, acting doubtless under the advice of those that were more cunning than he, had intruded into the kitchen, extinguished the fire on the hearth and relighted it in his own name.

Also the folk who were with him, men from other parishes, wholly ignorant of the matter, had brought a pair of ploughs with them. To these they now harnessed horses and would have set to the ploughing up of the glebe, which was of ancient pasture, the grass clean and old, a paradise of verdure, smooth as a well-mown lawn.

But by this time the noise and report of the invasion had spread abroad, and from farm-towns far and near swarmed down the angry{327} folk of Balmaghie, like bees from a byke upon a company of harrying boys.

The mowers took their scythes over their shoulders and set off all coatless and bonnetless from the water-meadows. The herds left their sheep to stray masterless upon the hill, and came with nothing but their crooks in their hands. The farmers hastily ran in for Brown Bess and a horn of powder. So that ere the first furrow was turned from end to end the glebe was black with people, swarming like an angry hive whose defences have been stormed.

So the invaders could not stand, either in numbers or anger, against the honest folk who had sworn to keep sacred the home of the man of their choice.

Even as I came to the entering in of the Kirk loaning, I saw the ending of the fray. The invaders were fleeing down the water-side; the poor lad McKie, who in his anger had stricken a woman to the ground and stamped upon her, had a wound in his hand made by a reaping-hook. The ploughs had been thrown into the Dee, and the folk of Balmaghie were pursuing and beating stray fugitives, like school laddies threshing at a wasps’ nest.

Then I, who had striven so lately with the{328} powers of evil in high places, was stricken to the heart at this unseemly riot, and resolved within me that there should be a quick end to this.

Who was I that I should thus be a troubler of Israel, and make the hot anger rise in these quiet hearts? Could I stand against all Scotland? Nay, could I alone be in the right and all the others in the wrong? There was surely work for me to do outside the bounds of one small parish—at least, in all broad Scotland, a few godly folk of the ancient way to whom I could minister.

So I resolved then and there, that after the Sabbath service at which I had bidden Earlstoun to purge himself by oath and public confession, I would no longer remain in Balmaghie to stir up wrath, but depart over Jordan with no more than my pilgrim-staff in my hand.

So, when at last the people had vanquished the last invader and come back to the kirk, I called them together and spoke quietly to them.

“This thing,” said I, “becomes a scandal and a shaming. This is surely not the Kingdom of the Prince of Peace. True, not we, but those who have come against us, began the fray.{329} But when men stumble over a stone in the path, it is time that the stone be removed.

“Now I, Quintin MacClellan, your minister, am the stone of stumbling—I, and none other, the rock of offence. I will therefore remove myself. I will cease to trouble Israel.”

“No, no,” they cried; “surely after this they will leave us alone. They will never return. Bide with us, for you are our minister, and we your faithful and willing folk.”

And this saying of theirs, in which all joined, moved me much; nevertheless I was fixed in my heart, and could make no more of it than that I must depart.

Which, when they heard, they were grieved at very sorely, and appointed certain of them, men of weight and sincerity, to combat my resolution.

But it was not to be, for I made up my mind.

I saw that there might be an open door elsewhere, and though I would not abandon my work in Balmaghie, yet neither would I any more confine my ministrations. I would go out to the Hill-folk, who before had called me, and if they accepted of me, well! And if not—why, there were heathen folk enough in Scotland{330} with none to minister to them; and it would be strange if He who sent out his disciples two by two, bidding them take neither purse nor script, would not find bread and water for a poor wandering teacher throughout the length and breadth of Scotland.